LETTER: True cost of gas far more than at pump

Barry Flynn, New Haven

Published
12:00 am EDT, Monday, October 1, 2012

Recent indignation over gasoline prices begs the question: What are gasoline prices?

Did you know that if you factored in all the big tax write-offs, subsidies and other goodies the government gives Big Oil, along with a calculation about the multibillions of dollars per year our military spends to keep the ocean oil routes open, then the true, but hidden, cost of a gallon of gasoline -- not the pump price -- is conservatively around $14 a gallon.

Some calculations put the entire cost that you pay to put a gallon of gasoline in your tank at around $30 a gallon.

That doesn't even begin to consider that we are incinerating our planet as we relentlessly burn off hydrocarbons. Nor does it consider the human bloodshed left on foreign sands.

And all the while, Big Oil continually sets records of obscene profits.

If anyone really believes in and wants to see the hand of the free market at work, eliminate all the Big Oil fat cat subsidies, have Big Oil pay its tab to the U.S. Armed Forces and have the consumer pay the real price of oil.

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